


Contraband

by CollisionTheory



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Humor, Military Shenanigans, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28701591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollisionTheory/pseuds/CollisionTheory
Summary: Rex discovers Ahsoka reading a "romance novel" which quickly becomes famous.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & Clone Commander Thorn (Star Wars), CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51





	1. Apprehended- twice! [G]

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a Discord conversation! Credit goes to The_Book_Goblin and AlucardAbridgrd on AO3 for originating the Jedi romance novel concept!

Ahsoka sat curled up on a chair, reading to eat away the downtime she had as their star destroyer transited hyperspace.

The doors slid apart with a hiss.

“Hey Rex.” She greeted him lazily, not looking up from the page as he walked in.

He stopped abruptly, whatever he was going to say dying on his lips the moment he saw the _much_ too steamy cover of the book she was holding. Rex made a face, stepped forward, and snatched it from her.

“Hey!” She swiped with her hand, trying to grab it back.

“Ahsoka, what is this…you’re 15 for kriff’s sake!”

He held it up in the air behind him where she couldn’t reach. If she wanted to, she could use the Force, but Rex knew she wouldn’t.

“And you’re- what? _Twelve_?” She got up and jumped for the book.

Rex made a dismissive sound, forcing air out his nostrils. He held it higher.

“Give it back Rex. I still outrank you!”

“Experience outranks everything, Commander Tano.” Rex smiled, a little mischievously. “And in my experience, this kind of _stuff_ isn’t–”

“Oh you know, that’s the title of the first chapter.” She crossed her arms, smirking a bit as Rex’s face transformed in an instant.

“What? No, come on.”

She raised both white lines of her eyebrow markings and nodded her chin up, looking at the book.

Rex brought it down, opened to the first chapter, then shut it closed immediately and stared at the cover while Ahsoka’s face broadened into a grin. 

“Who–” he demanded. His voice choked off when he saw the author’s name.

Rex shot a look at Ahsoka, who still looked a little pleased with her captain’s distress.

“I need to- excuse me.” He punched in a sequence on his wrist com and powerwalked out the room.

The mechanical doors closed, and Ahsoka heard his voice barrel down the passageway a few moments later.

“ ** _Wooolllffe!_** ”

*

Rex sat on his bunk, back against the wall as he flipped through the pages in the semi-dark of the shipboard sleep cycle. He took a sip of water and snorted when he got to a particular paragraph.

“Hah- he wishes.”

He turned the page. This short story, if it could even be called a ‘story’ with the minimal amount of plot it contained, featured a red Togrutan Jedi and was set on- _Kamino?_

Rex slammed the book shut with a sharp intake of breath.

No. Absolutely not.

He tossed the book into the waste can, then stretched out over his bunk to get some sleep. 

*

“Inspection time, boys.”

Rex walked over to the first locker and quickly went through it, datapad in hand.

“O-kay…looks good…” He made a small note on the screen and checked something off.

He opened the next locker, gaze immediately settling on an entire box of blaster polishing cloths packed onto a shelf in the least space-efficient configuration possible.

One of the men shifted behind him, boots scuffing the floor.

Rex narrowed his eyes. As he pulled the box out, something behind it slipped and dropped to the floor with a soft _thwop._ He looked down.

It was the book. Someone, or more likely a few people, had made creative alterations to the ‘interesting’ cover, but it was unmistakably _that_ same book.

He shoved the box of cloths back into the locker and bent down to snatch up the book from the floor, expression shifting between anger and disbelief.

He spun around, thrusting the thing into the air beside his head as he rounded on an ARC now trying _very_ hard to maintain military bearing.

“Where the _kriff_ did you get this, Fives!?”


	2. Dereliction of Duty [T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A digital copy of Ahsoka's confiscated romance novel finds its way to the Coruscant Guard after Captain Rex was unable to prevent Fives from distributing it as widely as possible.

CT-6482 stood alone inside his guard post on the perimeter of the Central Detention Center. He blinked back the urge to sleep as the night rain came down in gentle sheets around him, buffeted by wind and harmonizing with the distant sound of Coruscant air traffic. It was shaping up to be another monotonous night. He had mixed feelings about working with the planetary Security Forces, but now, sinking into tedium, he felt very positively disposed towards them. A month ago they’d asked the Guard to let a prisoner “escape” during a “breakout” so that both the GAR and civilian law enforcement could tail him back to the center of his weapons trafficking operation. The operation had been a wild success, and what was more, it had been a lot of fun.

Sentry duty wasn’t, and he was getting tired.

He hit a button on his wrist to open a com connection with the guardhouse, then held his arm up to the vocal modulators in his helmet.

_“Den-Zero this is Esk-Five, com check, over.”_

The guardhouse responded almost immediately.

“ _Esk-Five this is Den-Zero, com good and readable, out.”_

Another post chimed in to acknowledge the check, but slightly off procedure.

_“Esk-Five this is Esk-Two, roger roger, out.”_

_“Den-Zero this Esk-Six, message: sounds like uhh…a commando droid’s taken over post Esk-Two- recommending we terminate the clanker immediately, over,”_ said the trooper at Esk-Six, sniggering as he transmitted.

The man at the guardhouse snapped back.

“ _All posts this is Den-Zero, message: you want to mess around on coms while the CCs are present- be my kriffin’ guest, out._ ”

The line went silent. After a few moments, the remaining sentry posts demurely followed up with CT-6482’s radio check, and now there was nothing left to do but listen to the rain beating down around him.

He took a deep breath and leaned off the railing and into the rain, checking to see if anyone was lurking around in the darkness below him.

All deserted- good.

Reaching for his utility belt, he unclipped his datapad and gingerly set it down on the small table at his post. With a few taps, he brought up the crudely digitized version of that flimsibook he’d gotten off someone in the 501st on his latest visit to 79’s. CT-6482 opened to his favorite chapter, then fumbled with his codpiece which popped off and clattered beneath the table. He crouched down and reached under to retrieve the fallen armor, wrist com knocking against one of the table legs as he did so. He lay the piece on the table, then set his datapad to auto-scroll the displayed text before reaching a hand down his blacks to touch himself.

*

“I’ll give it the go-ahead then, sir?”

Commander Fox nodded, then slid the data drive back across the officer’s desk.

“Yeah. The directive goes out tomorrow. Due to mission constraints I can’t give you the latitude you’d usually have for this, but–“

A groan snaked out of the central com equipment speakers. Everyone inside the guardhouse, Commander Thorn up on the second level included, fell silent the instant the sound hit their ears, letting a fleshy, repetitive stroking noise drop into the foreground over the fresh deathly quiet of the room. 

The face of the clone at the coms station flushed hot as he lunged for the controls.

“No.”

Fox’s order stopped him in his tracks. The commander stood up, turned towards the source of the noise, and walked over to the equipment with what all other guardhouse occupants considered to be an unbearable slowness.

He pointed at the speakers, addressing the man at the station in a dangerously casual voice.

“What post is that coming from?”

“Esk-Five, commander.”

*

CT-6482’s mind grew emptier as the seconds ticked by and anticipation swelled up inside him. Awareness of where he physically was and what he was actually doing dropped away with each twitch, winding up a growing tension between his legs. He wasn’t even focusing on the book anymore; it had done its job, and now he was riding along as the navigator counted down the jump to hyperspace, oblivious to the whine of speeder bikes pulling up on the walkway behind him.

“Eyes up here, shiny!”

The voice came down on him like a bucket of coolant dumped over his head. All the warmth in his stomach plummeted into a sucking void as he wrenched his hand out of his blacks and spun around to both literally and figuratively stand at attention.

Commander Fox leaned over the handlebars of his speeder bike on his elbows, hands clasped together. The shiny could have sworn he chuckled as Commander Thorn dismounted his own bike and began advancing toward his guard post with clear intent.

As CT-6282 swung an arm up to form a salute, he noticed a small green light swing up with it. He nearly dissociated from his body when he realized that he’d been transmitting a com signal this entire time.

*

The shiny stood stock still in the middle of the guardhouse surrounded by its entire staff and the two commanders. Fox and Thorn stood side-by-side, each painted the other’s inverse. He knew they weren’t- couldn’t be- any taller than the rest of the clones, but it sure seemed that way as they loomed over him.

His wrist com was still transmitting; Fox hadn’t allowed him to turn it off, and had ordered the speakers on the central com equipment temporarily turned down response.

“Well, Eyes-up…” Fox gently bounced the incriminating datapad in front of him like he was testing its weight. “This must be quite the document if it’s something you’re willing to abandon your post for.”

 _Eyes-up._ The shiny had his name now, but he’d give almost anything to be a number again. He took a breath, holding his chin up, and struggled to say something.

“I was tired, c-commander.”

“What makes you think we care about your excuses?” asked Thorn bluntly.

“It won’t happen again, sir.” Eyes-up tried to sound resolute through the residual embarrassment burning his ears.

Fox looked down at the datapad in his hand and spoke to it.

“ _Tired._ ” He dropped it to his side and lifted his helmeted head up to stare at Eyes-up. “I’ve had a long day, shiny. Commander Thorn here has too...” Each commander turned his helmet towards the other as the gears in their minds synched up.

Eyes-up felt a whisper of fear at the back of his neck as Fox continued, voice low and silky.

“…so why don’t you read us a little story before we go to sleep tonight?”

Thorn nodded, crossing his arms and cocking his head to the side.

“If whatever’s on that datapad is important enough for you to be derelict in your duty, then it’s important enough for _all of us_ to know about it.” 

Fox held out the datapad towards Eyes-up, flicking it up with his wrist.

“Start with your favorite chapter.”

“And keep your com open, shiny. ‘All of us _’ means_ all of us,” added Thorn as Eyes-up carefully took the datapad from Fox.

As he stood looking down his visor at the datapad, he belatedly realized he’d forgotten to reattach his codpiece back at his guard post. The night just kept getting better.

He scrolled down the screen a bit, then stopped at a random chapter and began to read before Fox interrupted him.

“Finish getting ready for bed first.”

“S-sir?” he stuttered.

“You’re the closest to being ready out of any of us, so why don’t you finish up before our bedtime story.” He gestured to Eyes-up’s missing codpiece. “Take off the armor but leave the wrist com. Get comfortable in your blacks.” 

Eyes-up’s jaw dropped. His face grew hot and his fingers trembled as he stripped off his armor, clasp by clasp, seal by seal. An officer with greying hair and an impeccable fade had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face, and a shock trooper leaning against a desk waggled his eyebrows at his friend next to him. The guardsman manning the com equipment snorted, pressing his earpiece closer as the comedians at posts Esk-Two and Esk-Six made vulgar jokes over the line.

He arranged his kit (minus a plate) neatly on the ground in front of a desk, placing his helmet directly on top. The clone who sat there patted the helmet sweetly, face contorted in mock sympathy as his chest twitched in a silent laugh. Eyes-up shot him a dirty look, then turned back around.

Fox stood with his arms crossed behind his back. He twisted his neck to the side, looking through one of the guardhouse windows to watch the rain thump and streak against the glass as it poured down outside.

“Do you ever miss Kamino?” He turned his head back around, addressing Thorn.

“Hah _, no,_ ” scoffed the commander. “But I’m feeling a little nostalgic tonight.” He dropped his head to one side, then threw an arm casually over Fox’s nearest shoulder in a gesture that rattled all of the shiny’s preconceptions about how CCs were ‘supposed’ to act.

“Since Eyes-up here doesn’t have anything important to do anymore, I say we let him indulge a bit. Remember what it’s like back home with the long-necks.” 

Fox walked over to the entry door and hit something on the control panel with a fist, gaze boring into Eyes-up from behind his helmet like a hungry gutkurr.

The mechanical door slid open, letting the rush of sound from the rainstorm outside flood into the guardhouse. Fox held up an open palm towards the door as if politely inviting Eyes-up over, but when he spoke, an order snapped out.

“Get outside. Start reading.”

Eyes-up’s stomach lodged itself somewhere up near his heart as he stepped across the threshold towards the sheets of rain, acutely aware of the eyes of all the men on him and all the troops listening in over the comlink. Someone chuckled behind him, and he braced himself to feel a slap on the rear or something equally humiliating as he stepped outside.

Fat raindrops matted his curls against his skull and slipped down his face. His blacks were soaked in seconds. He shook less from cold than from sheer embarrassment as he stood just outside the guardhouse door, holding the thankfully waterproof datapad up with both hands. His stomach curdled when he remembered that one of his hands still wasn’t _clean_ from his prior activities. The rain might do some good, but it couldn’t wash away the shame he felt as his warm and dry brothers smirked and smiled and made odd faces at him inside.

He took a deep breath and began, trying to ignore the blinking green light of his wrist com.

“Commander Jackal’s bulging pecs glistened with post-workout sweat beneath his tight gym tank. He radiated testosterone and feral energy, stoking a heady feeling in the senator’s mind and a kick of anticipation between her legs as she snaked her fingers over the thin fabric, tracing the words ‘PROPERTY OF THE REPUBLIC’ stamped there in Corrie Guard red. She trembled as his strong hands gripped her body, pulling her in close to warm her face with the heat of his breath as he nipped her bottom lip, toying with her. She palmed his magnificent erection through his pants, asking in a velvet voice ‘ _so what’s the punishment for manhandling government property, commander?_ ’“

In that moment, had Fox hauled his ass aboard a Kamino-bound transport for reconditioning, he would’ve dropped to his knees and thanked him for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to AO3 user SiladhielLithvirax for helping me plan out part of the structure and giving me the name Eyes-up!


End file.
